A tremendous story about Langston Jackson, former Cal Bear whose personal struggles led him down the wrong roads to a coma that led doctors to believe he had no chance to recover. BearInsider's Jim McGill takes a look at the struggles in Jackson's life, from his issues with recruitment by Utah to the frustrations of fighting for playing time against Jahvid Best and Shane Vereen, that led to drug addiction and overdose.
"Langston ended up going into a non-responsive state for five hours before the the paramedics came. It happened at 3:00 in the morning. They're supposed to do hourly checks and they clearly didn't. They tried to wake him up for morning call at 7:30 and he was non-responsive so that's when they called the paramedics.
"They tried to do the standard procedures for heroin overdoses and that didn't work, which backs up what the toxicology reports said."
Weeks into Jackson's hospitalization, few but the family had any hope for his eventual recovery, with his prognosis so grim that his lead physician counseling that it would be best to take him off life support since the odds of him even being able to speak in the future, let alone live a normal life, seemed minute.
Then one day, the situation took a major turn for the positive.
It's fantastic to hear a happy ending to a story that has taken so many turns to tragedy. Best of luck for the recovery of Langston Jackson.
Football
- Voting has begun for the 2013 Gameday shirt; voting ends on July 29
- Uncle Ted continues his preseason ranking of position groups with kickers
- The new UnifyTheBears gear is available for download for NCAA 14 today; video of the new gear is available here
- Uncle Ted reflects (and polls the readers) on the most surprising game of 2012, including the Cal-UCLA game